Chapter 57: Stem Chip

In the end, Qian Wenhuan did not turn down Chen Chen’s grand offer. He departed with an investigation team delegated from the company.

Before leaving, Chen Chen even had Xia Yin recruit a group of professional bodyguards from a security company back in Mainland China. There were thirty of them in total, most of them veterans. Some of them were veterans belonging to specialized forces.

This group would also leave for Namibia. Their task was to protect the investigation team, potentially also safeguarding the constructed nuclear power plant in the future.

There was a reason Chen Chen had his eyes on a country like Namibia.

First of all, the government in Namibia was more capable compared to the other African countries. They knew how to keep things in order and had an emphasis on long-term goals.

Secondly, Namibia was not densely populated. Attractions such as hotels were largely monopolized by Caucasians. Sandwich Harbor and its related activities such as seafaring were also controlled by Caucasians. Due to mutual interests, there were not many that were willing to risk upheaval in Namibia.

The third reason, which was also the most important reason, the involvement of Mainland China.

When Namibia was founded in 1990, Mainland China had taken a full hundred percent equity of the third largest uranium mine in the world, which was located in Namibia – the Husan Uranium Mine. Two years ago, the Central Continent had claimed sixty-eight percent equity of the fourth largest production uranium mine – the Rössing Uranium Mine.

Though Chen Chen was not sure how the Namibian Government felt about the way things turned out, one thing was for certain – thanks to the two uranium mines, there was no way the government could face collapse.

Mainland China would not let any harm befall them.

This was what the second strongest nation in the world, which also boasted the world’s strongest economy was capable of.

On the other side, Chen Chen remained in the research center, coordinating the research. He only occasionally conducted the research himself. All of the lab personnel were very motivated and hardworking as they had a clear vision to work toward.

The primary concern for modern scientific research was not the complexity of the research, but the lack of a viable path. Take the first atomic bomb for example. When it was first constructed, nobody was certain whether Einstein’s theory was correct.

When America developed the first atomic bomb, they had paved the way for all the other nations in the world. After knowing that it could be succeeded, they knew which path was viable. All that was left to do was to experiment with each path.

After that, each nation began fervently developing atomic bombs of their own, eventually leading up to the Earth Federation as we knew it today.

Therefore, aside from the difficulty of applying Chen Chen’s operation technique, the main focus was to pave a new path for stem cell research. This was the true value of the thesis.

On the company’s side of things, Wynn had proved himself to be a rather capable individual. Within less than a month, the company had contacted various agencies and had more than twenty elderly macaques along with five chimpanzees silently shipped into the research center.

After that, various taboo experiments were conducted in a rather unseemly research center. The likes of which would cause an uproar among animal protection organizations if word ever got out.

...

After all of the employees had finished their work and left, Chen Chen appeared again in the control room of the research center.

Over the past month, Chen Chen continued to ritually charge the USB drive using the powering system in the research center.

After accomplishing his task of hiding the NZT-48, he began to think about what he could do with the remaining energy.

The research center was still too small.

Chen Chen needed a larger research center. He also needed a better research team who could venture out on projects on their own.

However, there was the problem of confidentiality.

As he continued to expand his influence, his company had begun to reach into the dark corners of the world.

For his following experiments, the animal experiments were debatably acceptable. When it came to the other clinical experiments, they were not something that he could get approval for with just several millions of political contributions.

The approval process for the clinical experiments alone was going to take at least months, even years.

Therefore, illegal clinical experiments were going to be conducted no matter what. However, Chen Chen did not fully trust the researchers under him.

Take the venture into Africa for example. In truth, this task should be entrusted to his personal confidant. As he did not have anyone who had met that condition, he had to resort to Qian Wenhuan who came from the same continent as him.

Although Chen Chen had deduced using psychological analysis that Qian Wenhuan was a very loyal individual, human nature was prone to change.

Also, Chen Chen did not have much faith in the group of army veteran turned bodyguards headed for Africa. Even with the salary in the range of ten thousand US dollars and insurance valued up to millions, how much use would they realistically be when faced with real bullets armed by African militants?

Chen Chen needed a group of international armed forces completely loyal to him. He would also need a secret research center along with hundreds or thousands of experts.

He was going to start over from square one again to build a following that was truly loyal to him.

Chen Chen sighed.

Under usual circumstances, he was going to need more than twenty, even thirty years to build such a team. However, with the help of his USB drive, anything was possible as long as he had enough energy.

When he thought of this, Chen Chen touched the bracer on his arm. A pitch-black USB drive was fitted in the inner section of the bracer.

Chen Chen thought for a while and inserted it into the computer in front of him. He searched for a movie online.

Upgrade.

Upgrade was a movie that had premiered in 2018. It was directed by James Wan’s partner, Leigh Whannell, depicting a future civilization wherein humans and artificial intelligence systems were perfectly blended.

The protagonist was someone who hated artificial intelligence. He had never had a single chip installed.

One day, the protagonist’s self-driving car was taken over by an unknown hacker and caused an accident. That was not the end of it. After that, several assassins arrived on the scene and executed the protagonist along with his wife.

Unexpectedly, the bullet that would have killed the protagonist was lodged in between his cervical spine. As a result, the protagonist became a paraplegic disabled man.

Just as the protagonist thought he had reached the end of the line, the president of a high-tech company came to him. He raised a suggestion to the protagonist.

A new form of chip implementation experiment.

The experiment was an unqualified success. With the help of the chipset known as the STEM chip, the protagonist made a tremendous leap and gained superhero-like abilities. He began to investigate his killer’s identities. Unbeknownst to him, the chip inside his cervical spine was the true culprit...

This was the summary of the movie. The technological aspect that stood out the most within the movie was the spider-shaped STEM chip.

A mere tiny chip barely the size of a fingernail was able to link the human brain and nerves together. Following the protagonist’s cervical spine injury, it was able to process neuron signals from the brain and brainstem, in turn helping the protagonist control his body.

However, the artificial intelligence within the chip did not only serve as a neuron receptor but it also turned out to be sentient. Initially, it did not have the authority to refuse the protagonist’s orders. However, it began to lay down one trap after another, slowly luring the protagonist into lifting its restrictions...

At last, the STEM chip was able to completely bypass the protagonist’s orders.

Just like that, the protagonist was completely taken over by an artificial intelligence inside a chip.

“If the chip could be modified and used to manipulate people, then the issue with confidentiality could be easily solved in one go.”

Chen Chen thought for a moment. He reached for the computer screen...

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